Friday, September 14, 2007

HamNation: Out-Truthing the Truthers

Mary Katharine Ham, columnist, blogger and Managing Editor of townhall.com was in New York on Tuesday where she attempted to challenge the 9/11 truthers with the truth. Since the 9/11 truth movement has grown quite substantially since 9/11, the media can no longer pretend that we don't exist. We aren't yet taken seriously by the mainstream press, but the fact that they can no longer ignore us means that we are making progress. The truther counter-protest handed out pamphlets that read "Read the real, shocking truth about 9/11... how 19 Middle Eastern men flew planes into our buildings and brought down the towers and how it's NOT a government conspiracy."

The obvious purpose of her video was to suggest that the entire purpose of the 9/11 truth movement was to insult the victims and their families. This is a common refrain among people who continue to believe the official government conspiracy theory regarding 9/11. How does investigating a crime dishonor the memories of the victims of that crime?

If someone was investigating the murder of Natalie Holloway, Chandra Levy or any of the other thousands of unsolved crimes, no one would suggest that this is somehow insulting to the victims or their families. Yet, 9/11 truthers not only get tarred with this brush, we are also routinely compared to Holocaust deniers. We aren't denying that people were killed, only who was responsible for the killing.

Nevertheless, as Gandhi said, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” We have certainly passed the point of being ignored, this means we are getting closer to winning.